A Heart For My Lies

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Darkness

It provoked the thoughts running through my mind as I stared up into the abyss of blackness. Darkness can be like a cloak, a security that we wrap around our shoulders in hope that no one will see behind it. I had myself coated in darkness; one that I was sure would never falter. I was concealing myself. Hiding the true me.

My bed cradled my body, as I waited in anticipation. Just waiting. If this were any other night, the country darkness would be about impenetrable. Lying, all alone in the darkness, my trusty cell phone at my side.

Instantly, the darkness lit up. And just how the darkness peeled away with that one message, so did a little more of the coat that was smothering me.

What's wrong?

I read the message fast, letting my fingers briskly slip over the keys and type back all the emotion I’d been trying to withstand.

I'm sick of no one caring. Its like I'm invisible. No one bothers with me.

I pressed the send button with a trembling hand. I couldn’t work out why it was so easy to open up to Riley, tell him all those thoughts that were rushing through my irrational head. We hardly even spoke at school. It made me wonder if my personal shrink was really who he claimed to be.

It’s because they can tell you're lying, no one likes a liar.

I read this message several times over, my brow furrowing further with each reread. I couldn’t make sense of his words. I didn’t lie. I wasn’t lying about anything to my friends. I felt as if I must be missing something.

I'm not lying. If anyone’s lying, it’s them, by claiming to be my friends.

I set my phone down gently, with all the caution I could muster. The front screen switched off after a few seconds by I continued to stare down at the place where I knew my phone was lying. Just sitting there, waiting dormant. The darkness was hushing me to sleep, smothering my clear thought. Just before I fell, light penetrated my limp eyelids, shooting them open. My stomach tightened with anxiety as I flipped open my phone. How had I even been considering sleeping?

Yes, you are, Samara, you're lying about the person you really are.

I felt my heart flutter ten times faster. Riley knew the real me, I should have been more careful. I’d been under the impression that he hadn’t gotten anything out of our little nightly conversations, that he was doing it for purely materialistic reasons.

What? Are you suggesting that I change? I can’t change now, my facades all I have. No one gets the real me.

I sent the message

I couldn’t think while I waited, couldn’t feel, or hear anything. The only sensation was numbness to the whole ordeal.

I get the real you.

I’d never thought about it before, but he was probably right. I’d come home from having a bad day, and there he was, just on the other end of the phone line. Waiting. Was I obsessed? I think so. I was addicted to feeling understood, as if someone really cared.

True, but that’s ‘cause you’ve taken the time. They wont accept me, its better to be forgotten, than rejected.

Friends that aren’t real friends, the kind of people that forget all about you.

Ever wondered why? Why I took the time?

I didn’t reply. I had nothing to say. Besides, I knew he’d answer soon enough…

Because I really like you. I'm a liar too, I've been lying to myself for months.

The numbness extended into my fingers. My hands stuttered as I tried to tap in my reply.

You have?

My pulse was pounding in my wrists, tingling its way along the soft insides of my arms, and through my extremities. Making the world become alight with pleasantness.

I’ll make you a deal. You stop lying tomorrow and I’ll do the same.

The light was falling over my cloak of darkness already. I held my phone open as my eyes slid incredulously across the words. Curiosity to what he’d been hiding thundering through every last portion of me, taking control of all my other feelings. My fingers danced in slow motion as they typed in the two measly letters.

Ok

The light was billowing through my unclosed curtains when I finally woke to the early morning. It seemed like more than a coincidence. My darkness was gone, and therefore, so were the clouds coating the sky.

I was going to do this.

I briskly sprang out of bed; getting dressed was led of an ordeal than usual. I chose what I wanted to wear, not what I was expected to. Crisp dark jeans and a long purple top. No trace of short skirts or boob tubes in sight.

I took a deep breath in.

I left my dark hair in spiraling ringlets, not caring to turn on my straightening irons. I squeezed my eyes shut as I passed my mirror. The physical portion was only a small part of the real makeover. The less important part.

I quickly made my way down the stairs and through the house, grabbing a coat to bear the cold whipping wind. I wrapped the red trench coat securely around my waist.

My shoes tapped cautiously at the pathway, a little unfamiliar sounding. I was used to the loud obnoxious clicks of high heels under my feet. The walk to school seemed longer than usual. The anticipation was magnifying everything.

My thoughts flowed fast and free. What had he been lying about? What had his cloak of darkness been concealing?

Heads turned as I made my way into the school, I could hear the whispers…

“Who’s that?”

“It can’t be…”

“Isn’t she…?”

I ignored them, breezing right by every last overwhelmed student. My head even with the world for once, my nose not stuck up high in the air. I headed right towards the only tree in the entire school. Where my so called friends would undoubtedly be waiting.

I saw them before they really saw me.

Its ironic that three pairs of eyes couldn’t find something that they weren’t looking for, while just my two eyes could find the three people that I didn’t really want to be looking for.

They looked as dolled up and fake as ever. But there was something different about the way they looked through my eyes. I was finally seeing them for what they really were.

Petty, insecure pieces of plastic.

I didn’t know if they felt how I did. Whether beyond the make up and short skirts they too were hiding something. That maybe their foundation hid more than blemishes and imperfections.

I stepped forward.

Madison’s eyes glanced over mine with cold dismissal. It took her a good few seconds to double take.

“Samara?” Her catlike eyes widened suspiciously. Maybe she couldn’t believe it was actually me. The ironic thing was that I was more myself than ever.

I shrugged. “Yeah, its me.”

“You look…”

“Different?” I supplied.

“I was going to say horrible,” Her eyes glinted evilly. “What happened? Were you mugged by a hobo on the way here?”

“No.” I choked out, pretending that her words weren’t penetrating my skin.

“Well, I don’t know what happened to you.” Her gaze had already turned away from me. Monica and Sophie followed her lead.

I opened my mouth, only to find there were no words waiting to come out in my defense. I was speechless, and completely vulnerable.

“I do.” An oddly familiar voice spoke up. Odd due to the fact that I’d hardly had the privilege of hearing it aloud, but rather that I’d imagined it so much. Every time I got a message as I lay there at night. I’d concocted it so many times inside my head that the tenor of it was as familiar as my own.

I turned. “Riley?” Madison asked shortly. I hesitantly looked up into his smiling amber eyes. Unshed secrets glistened through every last bit of him.

I felt a comforting hand on the small of my back as Riley spoke up. “She’s being who she really is.”

“What do you me…?”

“She doesn’t want to pretend she's something she’s not,” he interrupted, “Its too bad, a real friend wouldn’t care what she looks like.” He smiled impassively at her.

“What are you saying?” Madison squawked at up at the boy that was fighting my wars for me. I couldn’t help but let a smile fall across my lips.

“I'm not another mean girl, not really.”

“But…”

We had already walked away, me, by the force of Riley's hand in mine.

I had a feeling that I already knew what Riley’s secret had been, that his speaking up for me for the first time in my life was a dead giveaway…

He turned towards me, a subtle smile tugging up at the corners of his lips.

“So what’s your little concealment?” I teased lightly.

He didn’t move for a moment, plainly staring into my eyes. My heart flutter a million times faster than it ever had before. Even opening up another text message from him wasn’t comparable in the reaction I was receiving from my heart.

Both our cloaks of darkness fell down that day, my own secret telling caused him to reveal the thing he’d been hiding. If I’d known what it would result in, I would have walked away from the fake me the first time my fingers touched the keys.

I find it a little ironic that my last moment of uncertainty was filled with the blackness behind my closed lids. It was as if the darkness wanted to make its mark before my life became impossibly bright.

The moment of darkness before his lips touched mine.

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A/N: Another oneshot. Ive decided to write like this succession of oneshots, with different characters, different messages, but all of them do have an overall message that I think we should all appreciate.

I was considering classifying them all as theFor My Mistakes Are the Greatest or something.

So far there is A Letter For My Life, A Heart For My Lies, and Im coming up with a simular title for the third one Im writing.

Any ideas? Please dont hesitate to voice them.

Thanks for reading :D